Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 28, 2018 Column Father De Celles
Modified Weekday Schedule. Once again, I apologize for any inconvenience experienced due to the priests’ schedules this month. As previously discussed, both Fr. Smith and I took separate weeks off in April, and this coming week both of us will be away for 2 ½ days for the annual convocation of priests with the Bishop (half of the priests of the Diocese go the first half of the week, and the other half of the priests go the second half). The most obvious inconvenience this causes is that we go to a Modified Schedule for Masses from Monday through Friday. But it can’t be helped. Thanks again for your patience, and remember to pray for priestly vocations.
First Holy Communion. Next Saturday, May 5, our little children will be receiving First Holy Communion. What a special and wonderful day this will be for them, and for all of us. Do you remember your First Communion? I remember mine. Please pray for our little ones this week that they may receive reverently and with true appreciation of Who they are receiving, both on Saturday and every time they receive thereafter. And pray for yourself, that you will do the same.
May Crowning. Since the Church sets May aside as a month of particular devotion to the Blessed Mother, we begin this month with the traditional “Crowning of the Blessed Mother,” or “May Crowning.” Please join us and many of our First Holy Communicants for this short but richly symbolic ceremony immediately following the 12:15 Mass next Sunday, May 6. If you go to another Mass, please come back for this!
Parish Debt. We will be paying off the parish debt very soon. Many of you will recall (although most of you came to the parish after the fact) that we incurred about $11.5 million debt when we built the church and rectory 11 years ago. Thanks to all of you who have given so much, either through direct donations or through regular offertory giving, to pay down the debt. I will let you know in the next few weeks when the balance is $0.
In the meantime, I want to encourage you all not to think this is a reason to lower your offertory donations. The sad reality is, 11 years ago we had a brand-new church to pay for, but now we have an 11-year old church that needs (or soon will need) major repairs, replacements and improvements. For example, in the next few years, among other things, we’ll have to replace the parking lot, reroof the church and rectory, and do major upgrades to the HVAC (heat, ventilation and air conditioning) system—work that will cost, in total, well over $1 million. We currently have about $1 million in unrestricted savings, but a parish our size should always have at least that amount on hand for regular operations and emergencies.
So, please keep giving at the rate you have been. For those of you who have been using our Debt Reduction Envelope, once the loan is paid off your donations in those envelops will be funneled toward our Long-Term Maintenance Fund. Very soon we’ll have a new envelope for donating to this LT Maintenance Fund. Note that like the Debt Reduction contributions, donations to our Maintenance Fund will not be subject to the Diocesan 8% assessment (the “tax” on the offertory collection we pay to the Bishop to run the Diocesan central offices and programs).
If we can keep donations steady after the loan is paid off, that will allow us to keep us running a surplus of roughly $400,000. In the past this surplus has gone to pay off the debt. In the future I hope to save most of this surplus, although I am considering using some of it for semi-major expenditures; for example, some of it will go to pay for part of the lighting/mural project (see below), and some may go to install security cameras in various parts of the building and upgrading our CCD facilities. In the future, I might also hire additional staff to offer more programs for you, if that seems reasonable and cost-effective.
Please know: financially speaking, I am, by training and inclination, first and foremost a bill-payer, who hates debt; second, I am a saver; third, I generally try to spend money (especially larger amounts) only when it is genuinely beneficial to the parish.
Once again, thanks for your continuing generosity, and your trust in my stewardship. God bless you for it.
Lighting and Mural Project Update. I’m sorry I haven’t updated you in a while about our Lighting and Mural Project, but I wanted to have more facts before I did so.
The good news first. Our capital campaign raised a total of $257,000. While this is well short of my stated goal of $400,000, I consider it a major success, since I had always realistically thought we’d collect only $200,000—so we’ve well exceeded that. Also, collections on the pledges are running very well—thanks!!
More good news. We signed our contract with the artist for the paintings, for a total price of $75,000, as expected. On the down side, the timing of the installation of the paintings will be different than I originally thought (due to a confusion on our end). The actual planned dates for installation are: first painting: sometime between March and May of 2019, and the second painting sometime between August to October of 2019.
Now the not so good news. Some of you thought I was overestimating the cost of the lighting project at $300,000. But even though we were using estimates suggested by our lighting specialist and the Diocesan Construction Office, when the actual bids came in we were all blown away by bids running about twice what we had estimated. To make a long story short, we were forced to rethink our expectations of the project to try find bids nearer our original budget—our basic goals are the same, but we’ve targeted more affordable hardware, and scaled-back some of the rewiring, extra lights, etc.. With that, we’ve have finally received several bids that are more or less in line with the budget, and are currently evaluating them.
So that’s where we stand. In the next week or two I hope to reach a final decision on the lighting contractor. I will give you another update when we get there. I apologize for not keeping you better informed. Pray to St. Raymond that all works out as God wills.
Finally, although I hope this is not the case, if anyone feels that because of the changes in our plans for the lighting they need to rethink their pledge, I would understand. Please let me know if that is the case. I have no intention of doing a “bait and switch.”
Bishop’s Lenten Appeal. Thanks to all of you who contributed to the BLA. Once again you came through to beat the goal the Bishop set for us, donating over $297,000, or 102% of our goal of $292,000, with 31% of our households participating. God bless you all for your generosity. (If you haven’t done so, it’s not too late to contribute).
Sign of Peace. I’ve received a lot of feedback/input on my question last week about the sign of peace. Thanks to all who have so kindly and respectfully submitted their ideas. But I still welcome more, so please continue to send in your comments to fr.decelles@gmail.com or call the office.
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles